Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

   New to the stable is a wounded HS828.  The base, drive, gearbox, augers and controls are fine.  The bucket is in horrible shape.   I think the open part is not just from rust but from stones rubbing.  The edges are pointing out like stones and snow were forced out bending the edges away from the housing.  It seems the thing was used way after the tear started.  The bottom edge of the bucket is in bad shape also i.e. chewed off.  The guy must have used it in the weight forward position on a gravel drive or uneven cement stones. ??  Surprising is the bottom of the sides are in good shape. 

A new bucket lists at $860 so that's out.  I paid half of what the GX240 is worth.  How can the bucket be fixed?   Rivet a circular plate in there?  Cut out 1/2 inch back from the open parts say a long 2-3 inche wide section the length of the worn through part and have a piece welded in?  I can probably come up with an old bucket I could cut to make a filler strip.  What's the way to go about this?  I don't have a welder and don't know anything about welding or riveting.  The metal on either side of the tear is strong and could be welded.   Is there any new miracle product like improved fiberglass that would hold and wear?

Have you fixed that thing yet trouts?

There have been numerous recommendations for repair but have you thought of just getting a piece of say 1/8" to 1/4" tubing that will fit tightly inside the auger housing then having it welded in there?  If you did something like that, all you'd have to do is trim the impeller vanes to fit.   If you're concerned about the cosmetics, you could finish the exterior with fiber glass/epoxy.

borat wrote:

No fix yet.   I picked up an HS55 track and HS70 wheeled and have been fixing those.   I picked up the HS70 as a basket case just to get it's bucket for the HS80.  It turned out the HS70 was salvagable and has an older but excellent G300 engine (the g being the old version of GX).  I've install a new back auger drive roller bearing and both auger axle roller bearings.  The gearbox was opened and in fine condition.  It's getting greased this afternoon and should be ready.   The HS55 had a bad friction disk splined shaft bearing so got a roller bearing replacement and will get three more bearings like the HS70, hopefully today.

I brought the HS80 bucket to a welding shop and got an estimate of 4-5 hours to fix it at around $400.  That's out.  I don't know much about welding so unsure just what would be best.  I've got a friend that could probably fix it but hate to dump it on him as he won't charge me and it would be a lot of work. 

I was thinking of riveting on plates but think the heads would rust or wear. 

I'm unsure if what bus708 suggested would work i.e. putting in some backing plates of sheet metal possibly pop-riveted then JBWeld.  Maybe even fiberglass.  Given the cold and vibration I'm not sure JB or fiberglass would hold. 

jrtrebor did a nice job on his.  He mentioned he plug welding his plates on.  I never heard of that so looked it up.  It is probably the way to go but I don't have any equipment and farming it out is expensive.

I'm not sure what "tubing" is.  I don't think you mean literally a round tube so not sure. ??

I've got a few spare buckets around that are just about the diameter of the fan section on the Honda bucket.  I was thinking that I could sawzall the destroyed sections of the fan area then cut matching but oversized sections from the good bucket to cover the cleaned out and squared up areas of the Honda.  The new pieces would fit over the cleaned sections and welded to the back side.  That would leave long sections of the inside of the bucket deeper than the original.  Some fill of some sort could then be fitted there but I'm not sure what would stay in place - not sure about JB or fiberglass.  

I could hold out until I come across a matching bucket but that will take some time.  It would be nice to get the old one fixed but I'm still noodling it and getting no where. 

What my bucket needs is a job like jrtrebor did on his. 

By the way what the factory number of your machine? 

By tubing, I'm talking steel pipe of sufficient diameter to fit inside the impeller housing.   There's a huge variety of tubing/pipe size and something might just fit.  If it does, all you need is a short piece to fit inside the impeller housing and have it welded into place.  It would be super strong, relatively inexpensive to buy and weld in.

You want to know what the model of my Simplicity is or are you asking someone else about their Honda?    

borat wrote:

Ok, a section of big pipe.  That's a possibility.    I could chop one of the buckets around here for a sleeve insert section.   I'll have to measure the clearance of the impeller to housing.  

I've wondered just what your Simplicity was.  I think it was pre-Briggs and made at one old Simplicity plants. 

Here's the current projects:

The HS55 got some paint and the HS70 rust stablizer and bucket inside paint only.  It's getting cold so paint for the HS70 will probabl have to wait until spring.   I expect good things from these two as in perform like a Yamaha.  They are pretty nice and have stood up very well over the years. They are both friction disk drive and the components in the tractor are quality.  There were some spare wide tires around with a close size axle hole so fitted them on the 70.  I'm not positive but think the size and speeds of the augers and impeller will be the same as new models so these should toss very well.

People say the Hondas are expensive.  They're for poor people who are broke and can't afford a Yamaha.  A poor man's Yamaha.  I can't afford either so bottom feed for old buzzards like these two.  For about $70 each these two will be back in shape and no wear part expected to crap out for several years.

"I'll have to measure the clearance of the impeller to housing. "

If the impeller is a bit too big for the insert, just grind a bit off of each impeller vane to make it fit.

My Simplicity was built in 2006 in the Wisconsin plant before it was shut down.  It's a 9528 with the 305cc Kool Bore engine/cast iron gear case.  It's built like a tank and very robust.  It moves snow like nothing I've owned before.

Nice collection of snow throwers you have there.  Are those pictures recent?  We've got probably 14" of snow here already. 

>>If the impeller is a bit too big for the insert, just grind a bit off of each impeller vane to make it fit.
I'd loose the racers edge for distance.  Every thousanth counts. 

I picked a long flat sheet of steel today and will try to fit it in there and see how much room it takes up. If it slims down the standard case to impeller distance and just make the gap smaller but not touch then I might try to figure out some way to get it in there permanantly.   If I could get it in there and make it work for a while then that would be kluge #1 and stay until I could figure out a better fix. 

The 9528 is a marketing number and covers a number of models/years.  There should be an 8 or 9 digit number at the back of the base with the factory number.  Maybe a 1 6 x x x x or 1 8 x x x x.  The factory number will ID a specific 9528 model.  

>>Are those pictures recent?

   Yes, today.  I was moving the 70 of the garage and the 55 in so took some picts.     I wish we had 14 inches here.  I'm really itching to see what those guys will do. 

 

Borat: can you please squish the photo to 700 or 750 so it does not blow out the formatting?

The 1694985 is the factory ID for your machine.  If you wanted and exploded view you would need that number.

The picture I posted was compressed by using photobucket for the purpose of attaching it to messages in forums such as this. 

Picture looks good on my computer. 

The issue is being able to read the forum posts $#%*fortably.  A large picture will blow out the forum posts such that the lines of text in posts go off the viewing screen of a standard monitor.   The scroll bar will then come up because of the large width of the all the posts caused by the big picture.   To read a line of text you have to use the scroll bar to read the front and last segments of lines of text.  It's a pain in the neck to have to go back and forth with the scroll bar to read many long posts.   A viewable cropped picture will carry the same info and not blow out the forum standard size of posts.

There is size refering to density or resolution generally refering to the pixel count.  There is size refering to boarder length and width.  Your picture was 1023 x 766, the length and width in pixels and 247KB the total size in bytes.  Those are the two different "sizes". 

You can reduce the density and still have a crisp picture.  That's because home monitors can't display great resolution.  Home software just discards most of the pixels and displays what it can.  The pictures still look very crisp at the reduced pixel count.

You can reduce the lengh and width and keep or reduce the density but the image seen will most often be very good.  If you reduce the length and width of a picture to about 700 or 750 it will show up very well on the forum standard format and not blow out the size to be off the screen and cause the scroll bars to show up. 

Below are your pictures at 700 and cropped.  The first is also reduced from 240KB to 35KB and the second 24KB.  Both pictures are reduced in length and width and also density.  There's no great loss in quality on a home monitor.

If you reformat your picture to 7-800 the readable foum format will return.